Huawei which was locked in a battle with US authorities has finally announced the launch of its own operating system, the Harmony OS

Highlights

The Harmony OS would first come in Honor Smart TV and would not come up in phones until next year

The Harmony OS also does not come with root access and boasts of more security as per the company's claims

A few months back, Huawei and the US government were locked in a severe battle about Huawei’s business in the States. This was the first time that a very serious issue about privacy and security of consumers led to the exiting of the brand from the country. The US government barred Huawei from conducting any business with the American companies. This meant that Huawei could not use services from any American companies, including Google, and this meant that the Huawei phones would not be able to depend on the Android OS for powering their phones. Not only this, but the Play Services from Google were also now beyond reach for Huawei. But, overcoming this situation, Huawei has made a new development which might prove to be Achilles’ heel for Google’s Android operating system. Here is what we mean by that.

Huawei Harmony OS Details

Sensing this threat from the US, Huawei instantly started working on its own operating system, which was termed as Hongmeng OS back then. Later on, it was revealed that the US had rolled back the sanctions, but even then the threat had not entirely subsided for Huawei. There were massive security concerns looming in the US about Huawei. On August 9, Huawei finally announced the arrival of its operating system, Harmony OS. It is worth noting that the development of Huawei’s own OS has been going on behind the curtains for quite some time now, but because of its row with the US government, the development of Harmony OS was hastened by the company.

During its launch event of Harmony OS, Huawei revealed that the operating system is built on a microkernel which implies that it can be deployed on a range of devices. It bears a similarity with Google’s Fuchsia OS, but it also leverages in-house “Ark” compiler to process multiple languages like C/C++, Java, and Kotlin. Additionally, HTML5, Linux, and even Android apps will be able to run on the OS in the coming time, Huawei has announced.

Huawei Touts Security on Harmony OS

The Chinese company also remarked during the event that it would also be launching a Software Development Kit (SDK) for developers to make apps across multiple devices like televisions, smartphones, smartwatches, and even car kits. During the launch event of the OS, Huawei also announced that the first device which would run Harmony OS would be a smart television from Honor. As for the smartphones, Huawei has said that this year any smartphone won’t be seeing the debut with Harmony OS and the phones will still depend on Android for software support.

Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu also said that Harmony OS would be faster and safer than Android. The company also announced that there would be no root access in Harmony OS which would ensure enhanced security on Harmony OS. Huawei also added that the OS would then be made open source in the near future.

Arpit spends his day closely following the telecom and tech industry. A music connoisseur and a night owl, he also takes a deep interest in the Indian technology start-up scene and spends rest of his time spilling poetry and stories on paper.